“Making redundancies is never easy, but such incredibly large pay-offs are neither justified nor necessary.”

But Frank Douglas, director of group HR at TfL, insisted that redundancy has been used as “an option of last resort”, with headcount significantly reduced through natural wastage and external recruitment restricted.

“To minimise redundancies, we have prioritised at risk staff for internal vacancies, offered other employment locally or provided re-training,” he told Personnel Today. “Consideration of employment across the organisation is made before a payment is made to an employee, and employees must also have at least two years continuous service to receive a payment.”